Method and apparatus for replay of historical data

ABSTRACT

The invention is directed to a system and method for displaying data associated with network appliances. Icons may be arranged in a display area in accordance with a characteristic associated with the network appliances. This characteristic may be related to location, alarm state, sensor value, or others. Further, the icons may display visual indication associated with network appliance parameters. Moreover, the icons may be superimposed on a graphical element. This element may be a map, blueprint, image, or plot. Further, a set of historical data may be replayed through the display by altering the visual indications of the icons and the graphical element in accordance with a sequence of values contained in the historical data.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/107,917, filed Mar. 27, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,330,886 entitled“METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REPLAY OF HISTORICAL DATA.” U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/107,917 is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/429,504, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,714,977, and acontinuation-in-part of 10/057,563, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,159,022. U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/429,504, was filed on Oct. 27, 1999 andentitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONITORING COMPUTER NETWORKS ANDEQUIPMENT.” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/057,563, filed on Jan.25, 2002 and entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR A SET OF NETWORKAPPLICANCES WHICH CAN BE CONNECTED TO PROVIDE ENHANCED COLLABORATION,SCALABILITY AND RELIABILITY,” claims priority of U.S. provisionalApplication No. 60/264,445, filed Jan. 26, 2001, entitled “METHOD ANDSYSTEM FOR A SET OF NETWORK APPLICANCES WHICH CAN BE CONNECTED TOPROVIDE ENHANCED COLLABORATION, SCALABILITY AND RELIABILITY.” U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/107,917 claims priority to U.S.provisional Application No. 60/279,059, filed Mar. 27, 2001 entitled“NETWORK APPLIANCE MANAGEMENT”, and to U.S. provisional Application No.60/311,268, filed Aug. 9, 2001 entitled “METHODS FOR DISPLAYING PHYSICALNETWORK TOPOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STATUS BY LOCATION, ORGANIZATION, ORREPONSIBLE PERSON.” Each of the above applications is incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates in general to a method and apparatus fordisplaying data. More specifically, this invention relates to replayinghistorical data associated with network appliances.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Remote monitoring of locations and equipment has become important inmany applications. In one example, remote monitoring of networkingequipment improves security, prevents equipment failure, and aids inmaintaining network operability.

However, many typical systems for monitoring remote locations andequipment suffer from deficiencies associated with displaying andrepresenting data to end-users. End-users are typically limited to atabular view of values with few visual clues as to the meaning of thosevalues. Further, these views are typically static and only represent apresent value.

With such systems, alarms may be missed. Further, users may not noticetrending values until an alarm or damage has occurred.

In addition, such display methods make analysis of trends and causalitydifficult. Failure to understand the cause of a failure or alarm maylead to repeated damage and costly equipment failures.

As such, many typical monitoring systems suffer from deficiencies inrepresenting data. Many other problems and disadvantages of the priorart will become apparent to one skilled in the art after comparing suchprior art with the present invention as described herein.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the invention are found in a display apparatus. The displayapparatus may arrange icons associated with network appliances in adisplay area. These icons may be arranged in accordance with acharacteristic of the network appliances. This characteristic may be asensor value, type or version of network appliance, or physicallocation, among others. Further, the icon may exhibit one or more visualindications relating to a parameter. The parameter may, for example, bea sensor reading, alarm state, or network appliance status, amongothers. In addition, the icon may display alpha-numeric values ofassociated parameters.

The icons may be superimposed on a graphic element. The graphic elementmay, for example, be a map, blueprint, image, or plot, among others. Forexample, the icons may be arranged according to location. The graphicalelement may be a map to indicate location. Alternately, the location maybe a location with in a room or building and the graphical element maybe a blueprint of the room or building. In another exemplary embodiment,the graphical element may be a contour plot indicating variances insensor values throughout a room. Alternately, the graphical element maybe a vector plot.

In addition, the display may replay a set of historical data. Thedisplay may update the visual appearance of the icons, the arrangementof the icons, and the graphical element, among others, in response to aprogression through the historical data.

Further aspects of the invention may be found in a method for displayingdata associated with network appliances. The method may includearranging icons in a display area. These icons may be arranged inaccordance with a characteristic of the network appliances. Thischaracteristic may be a sensor value, type or version of networkappliance, or physical location, among others. Further, the icon mayexhibit one or more visual indications relating to a parameter. Theparameter may, for example, be a sensor reading, alarm state, or networkappliance status, among others. In addition, the icon may displayalpha-numeric values of associated parameters.

The method may also include rendering a graphical element upon which theicons are superimposed. The graphical element may take the form of thoseembodiments described above, among others. Further, the method mayinclude replaying historical data associated with the networkappliances. This replaying may include updating the visual appearance ofthe icons, the arrangement of the icons, and the graphical element,among others, in response to a progression through the historical data.

As such, a system for displaying data associated with network appliancesis described. Other aspects, advantages and novel features of thepresent invention will become apparent from the detailed description ofthe invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the present invention andadvantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptiontaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which likereference numbers indicate like features and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system, according to theinvention;

FIG. 2A is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of thesystem as seen in FIG. 1;

FIG. 2B is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of thesystem as seen in FIG. 1;

FIG. 2C is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of thesystem as seen in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a client machineas seen in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a server as seenin FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a networkappliance as seen in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a mapconfiguration, according to the invention;

FIG. 7A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 7B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 7C is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 7D is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 8A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 8B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 8C is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 8D is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 9A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 9B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 10 is a block flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a methodfor use by the system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 11 is a block flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a methodfor use by the system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 12A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 12B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 13A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 13B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 14 is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention;

FIG. 15A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention; and

FIG. 15B is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a display, accordingto the invention.

Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughoutthe several views of the drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of the system according to theinvention. The system 10 has a server, a client 12 and a networkappliance 16. The server 14 is connected to one or more networkappliances 16 through an interconnected network. The server 14 mayfunction to transfer sensor data from the network appliance 16 andtransfer configuration data to the network appliances 16. The server 14is also connected to a client machine 12. The client machine 12 mayaccess, display and/or manipulate data stored on the server 14. In thismanner, the client 12 may remotely monitor network appliances 16 and theclient 12 may reconfigure the network appliances 16.

The client 12 may be connected to the server 14 through aninterconnected network. Further, the server 14 may be connected to thenetwork appliance 16 through an interconnected network. Theinterconnected network may take various forms. These forms may include aglobal network, wide area network, local area network, wireless network,phone systems, and satellite communications systems, among others.Further, these networks and systems may use various method, protocols,and standards, including, among others, ethernet, wireless ethernet,TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, SNMP, Blue Tooth, and others. In addition, varioussecurity methods may be used in transferring data, including SSL, amongothers. Further, a user-controlled level of security may be provided. Astandard protocol may allow the client and server to be physicallylocated on separate sides of a firewall, adding another level ofsecurity to the customer.

In addition, the client 12 may acquire instructions for accessing,displaying and manipulating data from the server 14. These instructionsmay also be transferred by the server from the server 14 on an as neededbasis.

In one exemplary embodiment, the server 14 may communicate with one ormore network appliances 16. The one or more network appliances 16 may belocated in a server room. The one or more network appliances 16 may havesensors for sensing environmental conditions and security states of theserver room.

For example, the network appliances 16 may collect data associated withtemperature, humidity, door sensors, alarms, power quality, motiondetectors and cameras, among others. The network appliances 16 may, forexample, communicate with the server 14 through hypertext transferprotocols. In one exemplary embodiment, the network appliances 16 areconnected to an interconnected network, such as a local area network,wide area network, global network, and wireless network, among others.The network may, for example, use a TCP/IP protocol communicationsmethod. The network appliances 16 may, for example, communicate with theserver 14 using a hypertext transfer protocol.

For example, the network appliances 16 may ping a server 14 with an HTTPmethod communication. The server 14 may respond to that HTTP ping methodcommunication with data associated with the configuration of the networkappliance 16. Alternately, the network appliances 16 may use the HTTPmethod communication to transfer data to the server 14. In oneembodiment, the network appliance 16 may use an HTTP Post method to sendinformation relating to alarms and alerts. Some alarms and/or alerts mayhave associated image data which may be stored on the server 14.Furthermore, the server may associate the image data with the alert.Alerts delivered via HTTP Posts may allow other appliances tocommunicate and deliver information to servers that cannot initiatecommunications with the Appliances, for example, due to firewalls orintermittent network connectivity. This approach may provide superiorreliability, security, and connectivity to conventional SNMP alertdelivery.

The HTTP Post method may also be used to implement periodic posting ofdata from the network appliance to the server. The end-user may alsoconfigure appliances to periodically deliver their sensor data to thepresent invention, “pushing” the data to the server instead of havingthe server “pull” the data from the appliance. This mechanism allows theserver to collect and record data from appliances that it is not capableof initiating communications with, such as appliances located behind afully blocking firewall to inbound network requests. The delivery ofthis data may be set to require a user-id and password, allowing thepresent invention to authenticate the delivered data. The sametransactions used for communicating the current sensor values and statesmay be used to verify status. If the delivery of the data issignificantly overdue (i.e. by some period of time, or some number ofscheduled Posts are missing), the Server will declare the Appliance“offline” or “missing in action”.

In another embodiment, the server 14 may communicate with the networkappliance 16 using an HTTP Get call. However, the server 14 and networkappliances 16 may use various communications methods. These methods mayinclude file transfer protocol, hypertext transfer protocol, SNMP, amongothers. Further, the communications may include messages associated withHTML, XML, HTTP post, HTTP get, compressed data, and image data, amongothers. The communication may occur on intervals. These intervals may befixed periodically, vary with date or time, be adjustable, or anycombination, among others. In addition, timeouts and retries may beconfigured.

Further, the server may attempt to find network appliances throughdiscovery. For example, the server may attempt to communicate with eachpossible address in a given IP address range. In addition, it mayattempt to communicate with each of a specified set of ports that theuser has configured the HTTP servers on their appliances to use.

The ability to schedule a discovery or collect environmental sensor dataduring a control window makes life easier for network administrators toreduce network management traffic during peak hours. This approach mayallow the user to configure which days of the week to scan for theirappliances, as well as what time of day to do the scan. This feature mayalso allows the user to find appliances located at network sites thatare only “dialed up” during certain scheduled times of days, withoutwasting time and effort attempting to discover them when they are notconnected to the central site.

The present invention supports an arbitrary number of discoverypolicies, allowing discovery to be fine-tuned for multiple sites anddifferent customer policies.

The system may also support “discovering” appliances by handlingAppliance-initiated HTTP Posts. When an Appliance issues a Post to theServer, the server will determine if the Appliance is one alreadymanaged by the Server. If not, the Appliance will be automaticallyadded, either unconditionally or if it meets certain criteria configuredby the user (i.e. only devices on certain subnets, certain models, ormatching membership criteria for certain Groups (see 3.9)). The Server'sresponse to the Post may be used to tell the Appliance how often tocheck-in in the future (if it is accepted) or to not Post again in thefuture (if it is rejected), among others.

The server 14 may communicate with a client machine 12. For example, theclient machine 12 and server 14 may be coupled to an interconnectednetwork. The interconnected network may take various forms. These formsmay include global networks, local area networks, wide area networks,wireless networks, phone switching networks, and others. Further, thesenetworks may use various protocols, such as TCP/IP.

In one exemplary embodiment, the client machine 12 may communicate withthe server 14 using hypertext transfer protocols. For example, theclient machine 12 may have a web browser that communicates with theserver 14. The web browser may be a JAVA enabled browser. For example, aJAVA enabled browser may download an applet from the server 14. Theapplets may enable the client machine to access, display, and/ormanipulate data stored on the server 14. For example, the client machine12 may be able to access information associated with sensor data,configuration data, image data, network appliance status, and mapconfiguration data, among others. In one exemplary embodiment, theclient machine 12 may query the server using SQL to retrieve the desireddata. However, various other methods may be used to retrieve data.

The client machine 12 may then display the data in various formatsincluding tables, maps, and graphs, among others. Furthermore, theclient 12 may, in one exemplary embodiment, dynamically load JAVAprogramming object classes for viewing, accessing, and/or manipulatingvarious data. Most of the HTTP replies returned from the server are inplain ASCII text. However there are several situations where binarytransfers of Java Objects are far more efficient. For these scenarios, aNetwork Class Loader may be implemented so the server can create complexreturn-objects for the client. Since the client may be relatively small,a mechanism may provide the underlying Object code to the client beforeit receives the Object itself. The Network Class Loader is thatsolution. In other words, the client can make a request to the serverand receive both an Object containing data, and the code necessary todecode and execute the returned Object within the client's applicationenvironment.

This feature may further enhance the ability of third-party developers(both end-user and ISVs) to extend the present invention, since thedefinitions of these interfaces and the classes returned can bepublished without requiring the ISV to include potentially obsoleteversions of the class implementations in their delivered code (since theup-to-date versions will be served to the application from the presentinvention using the Network Class Loader). For compression purposes,returned objects from the server may utilize the Object serializationstandard put forth by Sun Microsystems in the Java Runtime Environment.

The client machine 12 may also manipulate and organize data. In oneexemplary embodiment, the client machine 12 may establish dynamicgroups, organized by chain of command, business infrastructure, orphysical location, among others. These groups may be displayed in a treestructure. Further, these groupings may, for example, be implementedusing dynamically created queries.

However, the client machine may have various embodiments. Furthermore,the client machine may communicate with the server 14 through variousprotocols. These protocols may include FTP, HTTP, SNMP, among others. Inan alternate embodiment, the client machine 12 may contain software. Thesoftware may be functional to acquire and load various programmingobjects and classes. The software may also be written in variouslanguages such as JAVA, C++, Visual Basic, among others.

The server 14 may also communicate to the client machine 12 an alertassociated with storage capacity. Further, the server 14 may implementautomated backup.

FIG. 2A is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of thesystem as seen in FIG. 1. The system 30 may have a server 34 connectedto an interconnected network 32. In addition, the system 30 may haveclient machines 36, 38, network appliances 40, 42, or third partyappliances 44 connected to a network 32, among others. The server 34 mayfunction to store information associated with the network appliances.This information may include sensor data, configuration data, image dataand map configuration files, among others. The data or information maybe down loaded by the server 34 from the network appliances 40, 42.Alternately, the network appliances 40, 42 may transfer data orinformation to the server 34 through the interconnected network 32.

Furthermore, the server may acquire data from a third party appliance 44through the interconnected network 32. A server 34 may store, group andorganize the information and data. Further, the server may supply theinformation to one or more client machines 36, 38, through theinterconnected network 32.

One or more client machines 36, 38, may communicate with the server 34through an interconnected network 32. The clients 36, 38 may accessdata, display, and manipulate data, among others. Furthermore, theclients 36, 38 may acquire instructions and/or programs associated withaccessing the data from the server 34.

However, the server 34, the network appliances 40, 42, the third partyappliance 44 and the clients 36, 38 may or may not be connected to thesame interconnected network. Moreover, these elements may be configuredseparately, together, or in various combinations, among others.

For example, FIG. 2B is a schematic block diagram of an exemplaryembodiment of the system as seen in FIG. 1. The system has a serverconnected to two interconnected networks 52, 54. The interconnectednetwork 52 also connects to client machines 58, 60, and 62. Theinterconnected network 54 may connect to one or more network appliances64, 66, 68, and/or third party appliances 69. A server 56 may transferinformation to and from the one or more appliances 64, 66, 68 and/or thethird party appliances 69 through the interconnected network 54. Thisinformation may be sensor data, configuration data, and images, amongothers.

The server 56 may store the information and supply that information toclient machines 58, 60, 62. The client machines 58, 60, 62 may, forexample, access, display and/or manipulate the data associated with thenetwork appliances 64, 66, 68 and third party appliances 69. Further,the client machines 58, 60, 62 may acquire from the server 56,instructions, objects, classes, and programs, among others, foraccessing, displaying and manipulating the data associated with thenetwork appliances 64, 66, 68 and third party appliances 69, as storedon the server 56.

Further, FIG. 2C is a schematic block diagram of a further exemplaryembodiment of the system as seen in FIG. 1. The system 70 has a server76. The server 76 may be connected to a network appliance A 84 oroptionally connected to a network appliance B 88. Network appliance A 84and network appliance B 88 may be connected to an interconnected network74. In addition, network appliance 86 and a third party appliance 89 maybe connected to the interconnected network 74. The server 76 may beconnected to the network appliance A84 through various means. Thesemeans may include a global network, wide area network, local areanetwork, wireless network, phone systems, and satellite communicationssystems, among others. Further, these networks and systems may usevarious method, protocols, and standards, including, among others,ethernet, wireless ethernet, TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, SNMP, Blue Tooth, andothers.

In addition, the server 76 may be connected to network appliance B 88through various means. These means may include a global network, widearea network, local area network, wireless network, phone systems, andsatellite communications systems, among others. Further, these networksand systems may use various method, protocols, and standards, including,among others, ethernet, wireless ethernet, TCP/IP, HTTP, FTP, SNMP, BlueTooth, and others.

Moreover, the server 76 may be connected to network appliance A 84 andnetwork appliance B 88 through the same, different, or variouscombinations, among others, of interconnected communication methods.

In addition, the server 76 may be connected to one or more clientmachines 78, 80 82 through an interconnected network 72. The clientmachines 78, 80, 82, may, through the interconnected network 72, access,display, and manipulate data associated with the network appliances 84,86, 88 and/or third party appliances 89 as stored on the server 76.Furthermore, the client machines 78, 80, 82 may acquire from the server76, instructions, objects, and classes, among others, for accessing,displaying and manipulating data as stored on the server 76.

The server 76 may store data associated with the network appliances 84,86, 88 and third party appliances 89. This information may includesensor data, configuration data, map configuration data, groupings andassociations, accessibility information, and image data, among others.The server, may, for example, communicate with network appliance A 84 totransfer the data. Alternately, the server 76 may communicate withnetwork appliance B 88 to transfer the data. In one exemplaryembodiment, network appliance A 84 may act as an intermediate betweennetwork appliances 86, 88, third party appliances 89 and the server 76.Network appliance A 84 may function as an intermediary by storing adirectory of data, acting as a proxy, or acting as a data reciprocal,among others.

However, the elements as seen in FIGS. 2A, 2B and 2C may configured invarious combinations, together or separate, among others. As such,various configurations may be envisaged.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary embodiment of a client machine as seen inFIG. 1. The client machine 110 may have a processor 112, programmablecircuitry 114, one or more network interfaces 116, one or more userinterfaces 118, and storage mediums 120, among others. A storage mediums120 may store application data. Further the storage mediums may storedownloaded data and information 128. However, the client 110 may havevarious configurations. These elements may or may not be included.Further, these elements may be separate, together, or in variouscombinations, among others.

The processor 112 may function to interpret the instructions andapplication data. The processor may take various forms. These forms mayinclude CPUs, embedded processors, JAVA enabled processors, and variouscomputational circuitry, among others. Further, the processor mayoperate with an operating system such as Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows2000, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows CE, Linux, Unix, BSD, MacOS 9.x,MacOS X, Sun OS, PALM, or a Java-based operating system, among others.

The programmable circuitry 114 may take various forms. These forms mayenable a user to program the client machine 110 using various interfacessuch as a keyboard, mouse, network, drive, and handheld circuitry, amongothers.

The network interfaces may take various forms. These forms may includevarious circuitry for communicating through ethernet, wireless ethernet,Blue Tooth, phone lines, and modems, among others.

User interfaces may take various forms. These forms may includemonitors, keyboards, wireless devices, handheld devices, and a mouse,among others.

The storage mediums 120 may take various forms. These forms may includehard drives, floppy drives, removable drives, cards, CD-ROM, CD-RW,CD-R, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, RAM, and flash memory, among others.

The storage mediums 120 may store various applications 122, applets 126and or data 128. The client 110 may function, for example, to access,display and manipulate data stored on a server and associated withnetwork appliances. The client may use installed applications to access,display and manipulate the data. Alternately, the client may downloadapplications, applets, and object classes, among others, to access,display, and/or manipulate the data. Furthermore, the client may usevarious combinations of installed and downloaded application, applets,object classes, among others.

The applications, applets, object classes may take various forms. Theseforms may include internet browsers, stand alone applications,interpreters, libraries, and instruction sets, among others.

In one exemplary embodiment, the client may connect to a server througha network interface 116. The client may have a JAVA enabled web browser.The web browser may function to acquire an applet from the serverthrough the network interface 116. The applet may function to enableaccess to the data, display the data in various forms, and enablemanipulation of the data. The client may manipulate data on the serverto alter map configurations, network appliance associations,accessibility and permission information, annotate data associated withevents, and network application configuration data, among others.

Further, the applet or applets may also function to permit changingand/or manipulation of configuration data associated with networkappliances. For example, one or more parameters associated with one ormore network appliances may be changed. A parameter associated withseveral network appliances may be changed to a same value for eachnetwork appliance. Alternately, a single value may be changed associatedwith a single parameter of a single network appliance. Furthermore,configuration settings may be uploaded to the server for futureimplementation on the network appliances.

The applet or applets may enable the client machine to display data. Forexample, the applet or applications may display a map. The map may haveicons associated with the network appliances. Further, these icons maybe used to display representations of the data. These icons may also besuperimposed on a graphic, image, map or plot, among others. Further,the icons may be arranged according to type, location, alarm state,configuration, parameter value, or organization, among others.Alternately, the applications or applets may display the data as atable. For example, the table may display a current value of a parameterassociated with a sensor on or connected to a network appliance.Alternately, the table may display alarm states associated with networkappliances. Further, the table may display configuration parameters anddata associated with network appliances. The table may further enablemanipulation and changing of the values within the table. Alternately,the data may be displayed in graphical forms. These graphs mayadditionally offer the ability to chart data associated with one or moresensors associated with one or more network appliances. However, variousother display methods may be envisaged. The applications or applets mayalso function to dynamically download data objects, classes, programelements, useful for accessing, displaying and/or manipulating new dataelements. For example, a network class loader may be implemented in anapplication or applet such that new data classes may be implemented.These may, for example, be written in JAVA.

The applications and/or applets may also function to display image data.The image data may, for example, be associated with events, networkappliances, and sensor data, among others. The applet or applets maydisplay the image data in association with the events, networkappliances, and/or sensor data.

In one exemplary embodiment, the client machine 110 may be a personalcomputer running an operating system such as, for example, Windows 2000.The client machine 110 may, for example, have a browser such as InternetExplorer and be Java enabled. However, various other browsers orapplication may be used.

In another exemplary embodiment, the client machine may be a handhelddevice with an operating system such as PALM or WINDOWS CE and be Javaenabled. However, various devices may be envisaged. In addition, variousoperating systems and computer languages may be used.

In this manner, a client machine 110 may have fully functional access toinformation stored on the server and associated with network appliances.Further, the client may function to view, create, and manipulategroupings of network appliances. The client machine 110 may function toestablish permissions to groupings.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a server as seenin FIG. 1. A server 130 may have a processor 132, programmable circuitry134, network interfaces 136, and storage mediums 138 and user interfaces148. A storage medium 138 may hold databases 140, applications 142,instructions 144 and map configuration data 146. However, these elementmay or may not be included. Further, these elements may be separate,together, or in various combinations, among others.

A processor 132 may take various forms. These forms may include CPUs,embedded processors, JAVA enabled processors, and various computationalcircuitry, among others. Further the processor 132 may operate using anoperating system such as Window 2000, Windows NT, Linux, BSD, UNIX, MacOS X, Mac OS 9.x, or a Java-based operating system, among others.

A programmable circuitry 134 may take various forms. These forms mayenable a user to program the server 130 using various interfaces such asa keyboard, mouse, network, drive, and handheld circuitry, among others.

A network interfaces 136 may take various forms. These forms may includevarious circuitry for communicating through ethernet, wireless ethernet,Blue Tooth, phone lines, and modems, among others.

Storage mediums 138 may take various forms. These forms may include harddrives, floppy drives, removable drives, cards, CD-ROM, CD-RW, CD-R,DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, RAM, and flash memory, among others.

The storage mediums 138 may hold databases 140, applications 142,instructions 144 and map configuration data 146. The databases 140 maytake various forms. These forms may include Oracle databases, SQLcompatible databases, Jet databases, generic databases, tables, andspreadsheets, among others. The map configuration data 146 may also bestored in a database 140. The instructions 144 may take various forms.These forms may include compiled code, interpreted code, Java code,Visual Basic code, C++ code, HTML code, PHP code, and Perl, amongothers.

The user interfaces 148 may take various forms. These forms may includemonitors, keyboards, wireless devices, handheld devices, and a mouse,among others.

The server may function to download data from network appliances throughthe network interfaces 136. The data may, for example, be stored in thedatabases 140. This data may be sensory data, configuration data, imagedata, among others. Further, the server may include applications andinstructions for communicating with the network appliances.

A server 130 may also function to communicate with one or more clientmachines through the network interface or interfaces 136. The server 130may transfer applications 142 to the client machine. These applicationsand instructions may enable the client machine 110 to retrieve, display,and/or manipulate data. These applications may also be delivered inparts, classes, or software objects on an as needed basis.

In one exemplary embodiment, a client machine may request an applicationfrom the server. The server may deliver at least part of the applicationto the client machine. For example, a browser on the client machine mayrequest a Java applet. The Java applet may enable the client machine toaccess, display and manipulate data. For example, the applet may enablethe client to organize and group network appliance data, develop usergroups, change user access information, display maps, manipulate iconsand map features, change network appliance configurations, displayalarms, and annotate data, among others. Further, the client machine maystore information on the server.

For example, the server may deliver an application enabling the clientto access the database and display image data associated with a cameraenabled network appliance. Alternately, the server may deliver a part ofan application enabling the client to display a table of networkappliances and their associated parameters such as a value of a sensoror an alarm state, among others. Further, the server may deliver a partof an application which displays a tree of network appliances associatedinto groups.

The server may also deliver an application and associated mapconfiguration data. The application may enable the client to access anddisplay a map. The map may have icons superimposed on a backgroundimage. The icons may represent network appliances or groupings ofnetwork appliances. Further, the icons may link to present or historicalvalues of the network appliances associated with the icons. In addition,an action such as clicking an icon may initiate another display such asanother map, table, or graph. The icons may have an appearanceindicative of type, capabilities, status, alarm state, present orhistorical value of a parameter or sensor output, or responsible party,among others. The icons may be arranged in a manner indicative ofphysical location, type, capabilities, status, alarm state, present orhistorical value of a parameter or sensor output, or responsible party,among others. Moreover, the background image may be a picture, videoimage, graph, contour plot, and vector plot, among others. Theapplication may also enable the client machine to manipulate user accessdata stored on the server. The application may also enable the clientmachine to store map configuration data on the server 130.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a network appliance, for use in the systemas seen in FIG. 1. The network appliance 150 may have a processor 152, aprogrammable circuitry 154, one or more network interfaces 156, one ormore storage mediums 158, and one or more sensors 162, among others. Thestorage medium 158 may hold data 160, among others. However, theseelements may or may not be included. Further, these elements may beseparate, together, or in various configurations, among others.

The processor 152 may take various forms. These forms may include CPUs,embedded processors, JAVA enabled processors, and various computationalcircuitry, among others.

The programmable circuitry 154 may take various forms. These forms mayenable a user to program the network appliance 150 using variousinterfaces such as a keyboard, mouse, network, drive, and handheldcircuitry, among others.

The network interfaces may take various forms. These forms may includevarious circuitry for communicating through ethernet, wireless ethernet,Blue Tooth, phone lines, and modems, among others. Further, the networkinterface may enable the network appliance to connect to variousnetworks including global networks, LANs, WANs, phone networks, pagenetworks, satellite communication systems, and wireless networks, amongothers. The network interface may enable communication between thenetwork appliance 150 and a server and/or other network appliances.Further, the network interface may enable the use of various methods,protocols, and standards, included HTTP, FTP, SNMP, TCP/IP, LDAP, andothers.

The storage mediums 158 may take various forms. These forms may includehard drives, floppy drives, removable drives, cards, CD-ROM, CD-RW,CD-R, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, RAM, and flash memory, among others. Further,the storage medium may store data associated with network applianceconfiguration, sensors, user access, other network appliances, andalgorithms, among others.

The sensors 162 may take various forms. These forms may includetemperature sensors, pressure sensors, airflow sensors, alarm sensors,dry contact sensors, humidity sensors, cameras, video cameras, infraredcameras, power quality sensors, data traffic sensors, acoustic sensors,and motion sensors, among others.

The network appliance 150 may function to communicate with the server.The communication may, for example, take the form of a ping, an HTTPGET, an HTTP POST, a SNMP message, an email message, or an FTP command,among others. With the communication, the network appliance may uploaddata, download configuration and/or accessibility settings, downloadprogram information, and indicate status. The communication may also usevarious security protocols and methods. Alternatively, the networkappliance 150 may communicate with another network appliance acting asan intermediary between the server and the network appliance 150. Assuch, the information above may be exchanged between the networkappliance 150 and the other network appliance acting as theintermediary. In both cases, the network appliance may deliver data on aschedule, as it is available, in response to a request, in response toan alarm, or in other manners. Further, the data may be formatted invarious protocols including HTTP or FTP, among others.

The network appliance 150 may also communicate with other networkappliances in a cluster. The cluster of network appliances may usevarious means for communication including HTTP, SNMP, and FTP, amongothers. The cluster may also establish relationships, a directory, andshare resources, among others.

In one exemplary embodiment, the network appliance may collect imagedata in response to an open door alarm or motion alarm. The networkappliance 150 may then upload the data to a server. The server may thenprovide the image and the alarm data to a client machine.

In another exemplary embodiment, a client machine may requesttemperature data from the server, the server may collect the data fromthe network appliance 150. The server may then forward the data to theclient machine.

In a further example, the client machine may alter configuration data.The data may be stored on the server. The network appliance 150 mayretrieve the configuration data from the server and adapt.

Turning to methods of displaying and manipulating data, a mapconfiguration may be established and stored on the server. The mapconfiguration may be accessible by various user. In one exemplaryembodiment, FIG. 6 is a schematic block diagram of a user associationfor the map configuration. A first user 172 may create a mapping oficons. The icons may be associated with network appliances. Thesenetwork appliances may be active or passive devices. Further, the iconsmay be arranged and/or superimposed on a background image. The firstuser may establish a permission data. The permission data may forexample give a second user 176 access to the map data 174. The seconduser may be given permission to view or edit the map configuration data,or both. Alternately, the first user may give viewing permission orexclude another user 178.

Additionally, the map view may be “locked” or “unlocked”. When “locked”,the icons and objects on the view are not movable, preventing accidentalor intentional manipulation of the layout. The privilege of “unlocking”of the map view can be restricted, allowing a map to be created andmaintained by one user account, and safely shared with other, lessprivileged, users.

The icons may take various forms. These visual forms may be indicativeof type, alarm status, parameter value, capabilities, and version, amongothers. For example, an icon may have a shape representative of itcapabilities, a color representative of a sensor value, a right handflag with a label, a top flag with a numerical value. In addition, theflags may change color in response to alarm conditions. However, variouschanges and uses of visual characteristics can be envisaged to representvarious data associated with network appliances. Each icon may havesome, all, or none of these features.

The icons may also link to other images, displays, and data. Forexample, the user, through an action such as, for example, clicking onthe icon may display another mapping, a data table, and an iconconfiguration, among others. Furthermore, the user may manipulate theicon configuration and store the configuration on the server.

Further, the icons may be arranged in a display in accordance with somecharacteristic. For example they may be arrange according to a sensorvalue, an alarm state, a physical location, or randomly, among others.FIG. 7A is schematic block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a map.The icons may be arranged in a display area. For example, iconsassociated with a user may be viewed. FIG. 7B is a schematic blockdiagram of an exemplary embodiment of a map. As shown, the icons may bearranged according to an alarm state as indicated by a shaded flag.Alternately, the icons may be arranged according to physical location asshown in FIG. 7C. For example, the location may be a location within aroom, geography, or server rack. Further, the icons may be superimposedon a map or image indicative of the location. The map or image maychange in response to events associated with the network appliances. Forexample an image representing a room may be replaced with a similarimage indicating an open door. However, the image may be a picture,video image, plot, graph, blueprint, or map, among others. In anotherexample, the icons may be arranged according to network appliance type,as depicted in FIG. 7D. The shape of the icon may for example representthe type or version. However, various pairings between visualcharacteristics and data may be envisaged. These map configurations andassociated accessibility information may be stored on the server andaccessed by the client.

The icons and object displayed on the map view may include both activenetwork devices and passive devices. The ability to add and manipulatethe passive devices along with the active network devices may allow theuser to accurately represent the physical environment of his equipmentrooms, for example. Other exemplary implementations may allow theend-user to import graphical images in a variety of formats (GIF, BMP,JPG, etc) to use as icons customized for their specific equipment (bothactive and passive).

In one embodiment, a mapping may be associated with a grouping ofnetwork appliances. This grouping may, for example, be related tophysical location or topology. In one example, environmental sensorreadings may be displayed on the map views as part of the icon. The mapview may display a single sensor attribute at a time on each of theactive devices supporting the given sensor. For example, whentemperature is selected, each device that supports a temperature sensorhas the most current reading of that sensor presented. In conjunctionwith the physical representation afforded by the map view, this mayenable a presentation of the two-dimensional “field” associated with thegiven sensor. The map view may also allow very rapid selection ofdifferent sensors readings via a context menu, allowing a user toquickly cycle between the values of different sensors without needing toopen additional windows. For sensor types that have potentiallydifferent units of measurement (degrees C. versus degrees F., ft/minversus meters/min), the view appropriately converts all sensor values tothe unit of measurement most appropriate to the locale and preferencesof the user, even when the data actually supplied by the differentdevices is natively in different units (degrees C. from one device,degrees F. from another).

The map may also use map colorization. Map colorization refers to theability to use color to represent sensor readings for an environment.This can be as simple as putting the sensor reading of the device on theicon or changing the color of the icon to represent a sensor thresholdrange. Also the background of the map surrounding the icons may looklike a contour plot to display sensor readings from around the room.

FIG. 8A is a diagram of an exemplary embodiment of the display. As seen,icons may be arranged on the display. The arrangement may be indicativeof a location in a room, for example. A background image may be acontour plot. For example, the contour plot may indicate temperature invarious regions of the room.

The contour plot may be calculated from values associated with thenetwork appliances. For example, the network appliances may be coupledto sensors in various locations. Data from these sensors may be used indetermining the contour plot. For example, the contour plot may use anweighting technique based on the value of some of the sensors.

In an alternate example, FIG. 8B shows the icons superimposed on a map.However, a blueprint of a room may also be used. Further, FIG. 8C showsa vector plot. For example, air flow throughout the room may berepresented in a vector plot. However, the vector plot may representother data. For example, the vector plot may represent sonic data.Further the vector plot may be calculated. For example, the vector plotmay be determine using a weighting of data associated with sensors.

In addition, the vector plot may be combined with a contour plot. Thiscombination may show a single measurement type such as temperature orairflow. Alternately, a temperature contour plot may be combined with anairflow vector plot. However, these plots may be combined in variousconfigurations. Further, the plots may be combined with maps, images,and blueprints, among others. Various combinations may be envisaged.

Further, the icons may be associated with groups. For example, the mapas shown in FIG. 8B may have icons representing groups. Upon selectionof a group, the display may change to give detail of the group. Forexample, the display may switch to appear like FIG. 8A.

FIG. 8D shows icons superimposed on an image this may be a static image,a video image, a live image, or others. For example, network applianceicons may be superimposed on an image of a rack. The image may beacquired, real time, by another network appliance. The image may changeas new images are available. Alternately, the image may change withevents, alarms or alerts, among others.

In another exemplary embodiment, FIG. 9A shows the icons superimposed ona blueprint or image of a room. Once an event occurs, the background maychange to indicate the event. For example, using a blueprint as seen inFIG. 9A, the background may be changed to indicate an door opening eventas seen in FIG. 9B. However, the background may change with variousevents and various graphics may be swapped in the background.

In a further exemplary embodiment, a client machine may display a plotin the background. However, the plot may be swapped for a blueprint orimage upon an event such as, for example, a door opening.

Another implementation of present invention may include support for avariety of enclosures, such as equipment racks and cabinets, that willallow presentation of multiple devices stacked vertically at the samelocation. Map Colorization of these enclosures will allow sensor readingto be presented with respect to vertical positioning, as well ashorizontal. In addition, the vertical positions will enable thepresentation on the standard Map View of sensors values for a given“slice” of the room (i.e. all temperature sensors at the top of theracks, the middle of the racks, or under the raised floor).

Additional use of the feature could allow the presentation of variousattributes generated from multiple related sensors in the sameenclosure. For example, each rack could be displayed with thetemperature delta between the temperature reading of the cool airflowing into the rack versus the exhaust temperature.

The map view may also auto-sort by alarm severity. For example,environmental sensor alarms may be sorted to be displayed at the top ofthe map, followed by network connectivity alarms, and lastly by devicesthat are not in alarm state.

The display string for each icon may be user configurable to verticallydisplay a customizable user-friendly “name” for each device. The devicesthat are red may have environmental sensor alarms, the devices that areyellow may have network connectivity alarms, and the gray devices may bein a normal state. The colors may be user customizable. In the colorizedmode, the display string may show the alarm status.

This ordering and representation allows the user to quickly determinewhich devices need attention, even in a group containing hundreds orthousands of devices, since the user can quickly look at the firstdevices listed and know which devices need attention. Also, the user canquickly conclude by the fact that the first device listed has no errorsthat none of the other devices currently do.

FIG. 10 is a block flow diagram of an exemplary method for use in thesystem as seen in FIG. 1. The icons may be arranged as seen in a block202. They may be arranged automatically by associated group.Alternately, they may be arranged by a user. A user may or may notconfigure the icons as seen in a block 204. For example, the user mayconfigure the colorization of the icons, the icon response to sensorvalues, events, and alarms, and the characteristic upon which thearrangement of the icons is determined, among others.

In addition, the user may or may not select a background as seen in ablock 206. This background may be a map, blueprint, plot, or image,among others. The system may then render the background. The backgroundmay be calculated on a server or determined on the client machine.Further, the image may be stored on the server or client machine, amongothers. Further, configuration data associated with the display may bestored on the client machine or server, among others.

In one exemplary embodiment, the client machine obtains an applicationfrom the server for displaying data associated with a group of networkappliance. Icons are arranged in a display area in accordance withlocation of network appliances in a room. A contour plot background isselected. The contour plot is determined by the client machine andrendered in the display area such that the icons are superimposed on thecontour plot. However, the plot may have been determined at the server.Further, other backgrounds may have been determined.

FIG. 11 is a block flow diagram of another exemplary method for use bythe system of FIG. 1. As seen in FIG. 10, the icons may be arranged andconfigured as seen in the blocks 232 and 234. Further, a background mayor may not be selected as seen in a block 236.

In the method 230, however, a period of time may be selected for whichhistorical data exists for the associated network appliances. This datamay then be rendered by periodically changing the background and/orvisual indications of the icons in accordance with subsequent data takenfrom a sequence of data associated with the time period. In this manner,historical data may be replayed. Alternately, the display may be updatedas new data becomes available from network appliances.

FIG. 12A is a diagram of icons superimposed on a contour plot. Forexample, the plot may represent temperature in a room. Some event orcircumstance may alter the temperature throughout the room. For example,a door may open, the sun may shine through a window, or the airconditioner may turn on, among others. Consequently, the temperature maychange and the display may be updated as seen in FIG. 12B.

Data associated with network appliances may also be displayed as a graphas seen in FIG. 13A. The graph may display the same type of data forseveral network appliances, various data from various sensors for thesame appliance, or various combinations, among others. The graph may becomposed of historical data or may be updated as new data is available.Further, the graph may replay data, changing the graph to represent anext value in a series of values according to an accelerated schedule.

To compact the amount of data the server stores overall, a schema may beimplemented to only store the changes in the environment. For example,if the system collected data from an Appliance every 10 minutes, and thetemperature of the room was constant for over an hour creating a datapoint for each collection interval may increase the size of the storeddata. Instead, only the changes may be recorded so the environment canbe played-back to the user in as efficient a manner as possible. Sincemost environmental sensors tend to change value slowly and infrequently,this enables a significant reduction in the amount of data stored in thedatabase of the present invention without any loss of resolution andaccuracy: storing 100 rows, 1 per minute, indicating the sametemperature reported by the same sensor is no more accurate or detailed(but consumes significantly more data) than one row reporting that thesensor was a given temperature for the 100 minutes between two points intime. This compaction of the recorded sensor data enables significantlymore data to be recorded for more appliances for a longer time(estimates are 20-100 times as much as a conventional 1 sample per rowschema). Each row may include both a starting timestamp and an endingtimestamp, allowing easy creation of SQL queries requesting sensorreadings at any given time (i.e. SELECT*WHERE ((START_TIME<=T) AND(END_TIME>=T));). Moreover, this method of selecting, retrieving and/orrepresenting data may be used for any representation of data, includingthe mapping with icons.

The graphs may be depicted based on a time range and a set of particularsensor readings. Allowing more than one appliance to be graphed at atime allows users to physically view the patters of environmentalchanges as well as compare one area of a location against another. Thegraphs themselves may be organized by day, week, month, or for theentire time range provided. These graphs may then be saved as in agraphic format, such as, a JPEG, GIF, or BMP file, among others, foremail and/or reports, or can be exported as comma-delimited text toanother utility of the users choosing.

The graphs may also include markers indicating any alerts associatedwith the displayed sensor on the selected appliances. These markers mayappear on the line graph at the point in time where the alarm wasreported or on an axis, among others. Different markers may be used foralarms reporting errors versus alarms reporting the return-to-normal ofa previously out-of-bounds sensor reading For example, a solid bulletmay be used for errors, and an open bullet for return-to-normal alarms.This feature allows a concise and comprehensive view of the history of agiven sensor on a set of appliances, both including the recorded dataand highlighting the important events associated with that history.

Since some environment changes can be radically different than others,the graph view may implement zooming in on a particular set of datapoints. This provides the user with a more detailed graph of a smallertime range. Just like the other graphs, a zoomed-in graph can then besaved to a graphic format for email or exported as a comma delimitedfile for use in another application.

When the graph zoom is activated, the time and sensor units scales maybe appropriately recomputed based on the selected range. In addition,the legend associated with the graph may be reduced to just includethose appliances that have sensor data contained within the zoom window,allowing the zoom view to be effectively used to pull detailedinformation out of a graph containing more lines of data than couldtypically viewed effectively.

Further, the graph may be updated as new data arrives. Alternately, atime sequence of data may be selected. The graph may be periodicallychanged in accordance with subsequent values in the time sequence ofdata. For example, FIG. 13B shows a time step update of the graph shownin FIG. 13A.

In addition, data may be displayed and/or manipulated in other formats.For example, FIG. 14 shows a display for image data. The display area230 may show an image. The image may be associated with an event suchas, for example, a door sensor, an alarm, or a specified time, amongothers. The image 136 may be displayed with event data 232 and/orappliance data 234. However, more than one image may be displayed. Aseries of images may be displayed from a single appliance. Alternatelyan array of images from several network appliances.

Furthermore, the image may be updated as new images are available. Thisupdate may be accomplished by periodic requests from the client machineto the server. Alternately, the server may forward data to the client asit arrives. Alternately, a time sequence of images may be displayed. Forexample, a historical set of images may be chosen for display.

In an alternate embodiment, an array of images may be displayed as seenin FIG. 15A. These images may take the form of icons. The images mayalso be updated with new images or replay historical data. Further, theimages may be active in that a user behavior such as, for example, aclick may enlarge the image or transition to another display mechanism.For example, FIG. 15B shows an enlargement of image 2. Other images inthe display may be removed or made smaller, among others.

As such, a system and method for displaying data associated with networkappliances is described. In view of the above detailed description ofthe present invention and associated drawings, other modifications andvariations will now become apparent to those skilled in the art. Itshould also be apparent that such other modifications and variations maybe effected without departing from the spirit and scope of the presentinvention as set forth in the claims which follow.

1. An environmental monitoring system comprising: a network; a pluralityof appliances, each of the plurality of appliances including: a networkinterface; at least one environmental sensor; a data storage medium; anda processor coupled to the network interface, the at least oneenvironmental sensor; and the data storage medium and configured to:receive environmental data from the at least one environmental sensor;store the environmental data on the data storage medium; and provide theenvironmental data via the network; and a server including: a networkinterface; and a processor coupled to the network interface, theprocessor configured to: receive environmental data from each of theplurality of appliances; cause display of a graphical element includingat least one of a vector plot and a contour plot; and cause display of aplurality of icons superimposed on the graphical element, the pluralityof icons associated with the plurality of appliances, the plurality ofappliances associated with a category, the plurality of icons arrangedon the display in accordance with a characteristic associated with theplurality of appliances.
 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein theincludes a contour plot indicates variances in the environmental data.3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the contour plot isassociated with temperature data.
 4. The system according to claim 2,wherein the contour plot is associated with airflow data.
 5. The systemaccording to claim 1, wherein the graphical element includes the vectorplot and the contour plot.
 6. The system according to claim 1, whereinthe characteristic includes a physical location.
 7. The system accordingto claim 1, wherein the characteristic includes an alarm state.
 8. Thesystem according to claim 1, wherein the category includes a responsibleparty.
 9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the category includesa location.
 10. A method of monitoring an environment including aplurality of appliances, the method comprising: receiving environmentaldata from at least one environmental sensor included in an appliance ofthe plurality of appliances; storing the environmental data on a datastorage medium included in the appliance; providing the environmentaldata to a network via a network interface included in the appliance;receiving the environmental data via a network interface included in aserver; displaying, via the server, a graphical element including atleast one of a vector plot and a contour plot; and displaying, via theserver, a plurality of icons superimposed on the graphical element, theplurality of icons associated with the plurality of appliances, theplurality of appliances associated with a category, the plurality oficons arranged on a display in accordance with a characteristicassociated with the plurality of appliances.
 11. The method according toclaim 10, wherein displaying, via the server, the graphical elementincludes displaying a contour plot that indicates variances in theenvironmental data.
 12. The method according to claim 11, whereindisplaying, via the server, the contour plot includes displaying acontour plot that is associated with temperature data.
 13. The methodaccording to claim 11, wherein displaying, via the server, the contourplot includes displaying a contour plot that is associated with airflowdata.
 14. The method according to claim 10, wherein displaying, via theserver, the graphical element includes displaying the vector plot andthe contour plot.
 15. The method according to claim 10, whereindisplaying, via the server, the plurality of icons includes displaying aplurality of icons arranged on the display in accordance with a physicallocation.
 16. The method according to claim 10, wherein displaying, viathe server, the plurality of icons includes displaying a plurality oficons arranged on the display in accordance with an alarm state.
 17. Themethod according to claim 10, wherein displaying, via the server, theplurality of icons includes displaying a plurality of icons associatedwith a responsible party.
 18. The method according to claim 10, whereindisplaying, via the server, the plurality of icons includes displaying aplurality of icons associated with a location.
 19. An environmentalmonitoring system comprising: a network; a plurality of appliances, eachof the plurality of appliances including: a network interface; at leastone environmental sensor; a data storage medium; and a processor coupledto the network interface, the at least one environmental sensor and thedata storage medium and configured to: receive environmental data fromthe at least one environmental sensor; store the environmental data onthe data storage medium; and provide the environmental data via thenetwork; and means for displaying a plurality of icons superimposed on agraphical element including at least one of a vector plot and a contourplot, the plurality of icons associated with the plurality ofappliances, the plurality of appliances associated with a category, theplurality of icons arranged on the display in accordance with acharacteristic associated with the plurality of appliances.
 20. Thesystem according to claim 19, wherein the means for displaying theplurality of icons includes means for displaying a plurality of iconssuperimposed on a contour plot and a vector plot.